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Top 30 MLB Fan Cave finalists heading to Spring Training

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Press Release |

Following two weeks of furious campaigning, 30 finalists vying to be contestants in the 2013 MLB Fan Cave have earned a trip to Spring Training for the final step in their quest for their baseball dream job. These 30 fans will travel to Arizona next week for a series of interactive challenges and interviews designed to determine the final group that will begin the 2013 season in the MLB Fan Cave in New York.

The 30 finalists emerged from an original group of 52 candidates culled from thousands of applicants. The finalists earned the trip to Spring Training in large part by actively campaigning for votes and promoting their candidacy through social media, media interviews and other creative means, including endorsements from players and celebrities, creative use of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, and new original video content. Overall, in just two weeks, the candidates combined to earn more than 400 endorsements from players and celebrities on camera and through Twitter (including actor Colin Hanks, David Price, Justin Verlander, David Ortiz, Jose Bautista and Dale Murphy) and participated in more than 200 interviews with national and local TV and radio, newspapers and online outlets. The 30 finalists boast a wide range of backgrounds and occupations, including recent college graduates, journalists, bloggers, comedians, musicians, a chef, an announcer for a college Quidditch league, and a former reality show winner.

After next week’s Spring Training trip, MLB will select the final group of “Cave Dwellers” who will begin the season in the MLB Fan Cave with the goal of watching all 2,430 MLB games while chronicling their experiences online through videos, blogs, and social media. Along the way, they will be eliminated or remain in the MLB Fan Cave based on the quality of their contributions, with one eventual winner crowned before the end of the World Series. In 2012, nine Cave Dwellers started the season in the MLB Fan Cave, with Giants fan Ashley Chavez crowned the winner at the World Series.

The MLB Fan Cave will return for a third season in 2013, following a year of tremendous growth in social media activity, fan engagement and video content, as well as a highly successful concert series featuring top musical acts. With more than 1.2 million combined followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the MLB Fan Cave has built a large community of baseball fans that the Cave Dwellers will have a chance to interact with during the 2013 season. A unique event space at 4th Street and Broadway in New York City's Greenwich Village mixing baseball with music, popular culture, media, interactive technology and art, the MLB Fan Cave is currently being redesigned to feature new technology and interactive elements.

More than 400 celebrity visitors including nearly 200 current MLB players as well as musicians, actors, former players and others have visited the MLB Fan Cave since its launch in 2011, participating in more than 500 online videos for fans to share via social media.

Some of the most popular MLB Fan Cave videos in 2012 included Bronson Arroyo and Aroldis Chapman singing a new version of “Red Hooded Sweatshirt,” Miguel Cabrera starring as “Miggy Poco” in his own telenovela, Justin Verlander surprising a special young fan, Ryan Dempster and Derek Holland performing dueling Harry Caray impersonations, and pranks involving David Price and James Shields, Cameron Maybin, and Buck Showalter, Jim Johnson and Darren O'Day.